conversations

God Is Not Like Me

May 12, 2013 by Bo Sanders 11 Comments

I grew up in a tradition that said I should be, as much as possible, like Jesus. I get that – and I try to do so.

Yesterday at the Loft LA I had the privilege to say 3 things (among many others) about God:

God is Black (from James Cone)
She Who Is (from Elizabeth Johnson)
God is a Fag ( from Bernard Brandon Scott)

It is interesting because I am none of these three things! I am not black, a women, or homosexual. It is interesting then to present these images of a God who is very much different than I am – even as we, as a community, are being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

It is important that we acknowledge that God is not on the side of ‘the powers’ but of those in need of liberation – that it is equally as accurate and as inaccurate to call God ‘She’ and it is to call God ‘He’ – and that according to 2 Corinthians 5:21

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is a topsy-turvey business.

Over the last 20 years of ministry I have noticed a somewhat unsettling trend that in order to be like God, I have had to move away from many of the natural strengths that ‘God gave me’.

While I love to be at center stage in the spot light with a microphone – I am fascinated with the cell group, house church, and small group model of church. As a pentecostal, I am obsessed with how the Spirit of God is at work in the People of God.

While I am a big, hairy, muscular man – I am convinced that feminist theologian are right and that Christian history does not accurately reflect the will and mind of God for the world that God loves so much (John 3:16).

While I am white guy – I am writing my dissertation on ‘White Privilege’ and hoping to confront some of the systemic racism that will not do as we move into the 21st Century.

So while I attempt to be more like God, I am very aware that God is not all that much like me.

This is an important distinction. As C.S. Lewis said in his poem “A footnote to all prayers” (it references Pheidias who was a legendary statue maker in the ancient world):

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

When we pray, we by nature blaspheme – all of us. The reality is that language , by its nature, means that words are provisional. When the Hebrew Testament speaks of God as a ‘King’ or Martin Luther writes a hymn declaring “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” … these are analogies. They are metaphors. They are temporary place holders.

Anything that we say about God is (in the apophatic sense) both illustrative and, at the same time, not exactly all that accurate. We would do well to get used to saying :

“God is like X … and that, of course, is not exactly true.”

Philippians 2 is helpful at this point. The ‘Kenotic’ Move of Christ self-emptying and descending for the purpose of service, exhorts us to not hold onto anything too tightly (clinging/grasping) but to empty our certainty and expose all of our assumptions to that which is not natural to us. Not an easy task!

If we acknowledge, then, that all language is provisional… that it is just a accurate and as inaccurate to call God she or he… that any prayer is at some level blaspheming … and that I am called to be like God – though I know that God is not exactly like me … then I can begin a kenotic journey of recognizing God while releasing God from my pre-conceived notions.

This is the dynamic journey of faith: to recognize the full moon and the new moon, the high tide and low tide, the Fall and the Spring, the ebb and the flow, the fall and the rise of all that I am familiar with and and all that I am ignorant about. That is what we talk about when we talk about God.

Rob Bell puts it this way:

When we talk about God, then, we’re talking about something very real and yet beyond our conventional means of analysis and description.

The Germans, interestingly enough, have a word for this: they call it grenzbegrifflich. Grenzbegrifflich describes that which is very real but is beyond analysis and description.

When I’m talking about God, I’m talking about your intuitive sense that reality at its deepest flows from the God who is grenzbegriff.

Bell, Rob (2013-03-12). What We Talk About When We Talk About God (Kindle Locations 767-772). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I would love your feedback and reflections.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, post-something, quotes, sermon, thinking Tagged With: Bernard Brandon Scott, Bible, book, books, C.S. Lewis, church, Elizabeth Johnson, feminist, gay, God, homosexual, James Cone, jesus, kenosis, Phil 2, prayer, Rob Bell, sin

Emergent Preaching?

April 12, 2013 by Bo Sanders 25 Comments

A good question can stimulate the brain to put together things that one had not previously connected. Stuart Harrell asked my a question about what a course on emergent “preaching” would look like. Here are some of my thought – I would love to hear yours.

My cleaned up tweets are posted as bullet-points with a clarifying thought following.

You would want to immediately address message and medium. It’s not just a repacking of the same old material.

What we are experiencing in a genuinely different expression of the good news. I watch lots of video clips of hip – fashionable – edgy young preachers who are still on an elevated stage using the exact same forms as the past 100 years … only they have added video clips and hair gel.

That is not what we are talking about. That is just lipstick on pig not that I really believe that old-school preaching is a pig, I just love that phrase.

#EmergentPreaching would involve scripture, culture, media, dialogue, experience & impartation to start.

The ‘problem’ with emergent thought is that it is neither reductive nor is it reproducible. It is environment specific (contextual) and organic. It interacts with its surroundings and emerges from its participants. It is a different animal from day 1.

I have given a LOT of thought to Emergent Preaching since my dad is a homiletics Prof. & I helped start The Loft LA recently.

One of our biggest glitches is that our ‘gatherings’ don’t translate to podcasts or video very well. We planned on being media savvy but the ‘sermon’ is broken up into conversation starters, dialogue, small groups, feedback and presentation. It’s kind of messy and we are still trying to figure out how to ‘capture’ it authentically. I think that we are going to start just throwing it out there unedited for members who missed that week in case they want to catch up.

the task of Emergent Preaching would deal with issues of power, voice, dialogue, participation, action, justice & cultural stuff.

This is where the medium must be addressed along with the message. HOW we do something is as important as WHAT we do.

Proclamation is a vital part of the Christian tradition. We don’t want to lose that! We address the form as well.

Why is there one person talking anyway? How is that person chosen? With what authority do they speak? These are essential questions to ask.

Assumptions of culture, the gospel, power, structures, and orthopraxy are vital to address in thinking about.

We are always attempting to do at least two things (this is true for every area of life). Side note: this is why saying that sex is only for procreation is ludicrous. So it is incumbent upon us to concern ourself with present cultural realities as well as desired outcomes – because we preach an incarnational gospel that must be in-bodied (embodied) to survive.

One would have to pull back the curtain & examine the scaffolding (assumptions) that hold the entire project up.

This is the tough job of deconstructing a constructive theology. There is no easy way around it.

It would be part Liberation, Feminism, Walter Wink, masters of suspicion, biblical scholarship & philosophy.

There is just no sense in even attempting to do proclamation in the 21st century under the auspices of emergence without this. Emergent Preaching would need to be well-informed and undeniably self-aware at some level. This seems unavoidable.

But it would also have to be rooted in history, hermeneutics, scripture and praxis. Those are my thoughts on Emergence Preaching.

In the end, we preach the christian gospel and not some form of god-ness or spirit-uality. We are the church after all. Accounting for history, hermeneutics, scripture and praxis is tall order. But what is the other option?

I would love to hear your thoughts on my little list and see if you had any additions.

You can also tweet me & and Stuart Harrell - use the hash-tag #EmergentPreaching

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, sermon, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, church, Emergent, emerging, God, history, homiletics, jesus, preaching, science, The Loft LA

TNT: Easter Call-In Challenge

April 9, 2013 by Bo Sanders 9 Comments

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The deacons have responded to the challenge!

That is exactly what we were hoping for when we cooked up a little obstacle course around issue of crucifixion and resurrection. The callers navigate the obstacles with ease and in doing so get to show off some their best theological moves!

In this hour we hear from folks all the way from the forests of northern British Columbia, to the island of Jersey. In fact, we got calls from Africa, Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe.

Here is a hand-selected sample to showcase a variety of approaches.

We want to thank everyone who called in and all of those that made donations to help support the podcast!

You can read the link to the original challenge here if you need to get up to speed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: bible stuff, conversations, latest, thinking, TNT Tagged With: atonement, Bible, book, books, challenge, church, crucifixion, Easter, Global, God, history, jesus, response, resurrection, Understanding

Tiger Woods, Nike and The Easter Narrative: When #Winning Means Nothing

March 30, 2013 by Deacon Case Leave a Comment

Jesus Stripped of clothes. Photo of station at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal in Atlanta, GA.

I’ve been a fan of Tiger Woods for a long time. As a youngster, I aspired to golf like him, and as an adult, I’ve spent hours watching nervously as his putts rolled in – or past – the hole. However, this week, Holy Week, Nike’s self-effacing advert for Tiger has gone one fairway too far.

The controversial Nike ad heralding that “Winning takes care of everything” is making the circuit trans-media. Radio shock-jocks love it, Today Show professionals are confused by it, and those who have ever felt the sting of marital infidelity once again feel enraged by the audacity of shamelessness exhibited by the world’s number one golfer and brand.

Tiger’s indiscretions are not the issue. My concern is what this narrative, this “winning is all that matters” attitude, means in light of this week – the most important week in the life of the Christian calendar.

From Palm Sunday until Easter, many mainline churches in America will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 services compared to their usual 4 or 5. This Holy Week, more than all other weeks, winning has nothing to do with who we as Christians claim to be in the world. Rather, if anything is to take care of everything, it is the deep and ancient practice of walking the Way of the Cross – a way that is marked not by what one is able to accomplish or win, but a way that is marked by how we are able to discover and live fully into deep oneness with God in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Christian triumphalists who will herald that the Nike ad is right on point with the message of Easter Sunday. Many will suggest that the Christian belief in resurrection is a winning, a taking care of everything. Yet what these Christians and Nike mistake in common is what Tiger and those who take the Way of the Cross seriously know best: the road to winning is filled with more self-learning, falling, failing, judgment, support from others, death, and personal inner growth than could ever be imagined. In a sense, victory is nothing if in the process you lose your self.

The Gospel of Luke remembers Jesus of Nazareth as having asked, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his very self?” The radical thing about the Christian narrative of Easter is that Jesus won through losing; he proved that life comes not from conquering first, but from loss.

Tiger Woods has been down this road before. He is again the #1 golfer in the world. But by my read, Nike does a disservice to Tiger and the journey he has been on when they ignore the brutal human and spiritual course he has walked to get back to glory.

This Easter Sunday, at the end of Lent and Holy Week, Christians have the same chance as Tiger Woods did on Monday at Bay Hill: we are invited to celebrate our proverbial return to Eastertide, to winning. Yet, we who walk in the Way must not buy the lie the Nike advertisement suggests, but find truth in the opposite: winning takes care of nothing! New life, even God, is found not on the road filled with personal accolades, but on the journey of self-discovery that leads through pain.

Joshua Case in Oratory of the Holy Family, Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church, Atlanta, GA

Joshua Case is an Episcopal blogger, curator, and public theologian. Joshua currently works at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta. When not curating things religious and technological, Joshua works as a professional golf instructor.

Follow Joshua on Twitter

Filed Under: church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, news, thinking Tagged With: Eastertide, Holy Week, Joshua Case, Tiger Woods

Homosexuality: the difference between TV and Greek Tragedy

March 27, 2013 by Bo Sanders 21 Comments

Blogging is a fascinating way to interact with people over an issue or topic.

Once in while a blog will unexpectedly come back to life after months of lying dormant. It usually happens when A) somebody references it month later B) when the topic hits the news again. The dying embers leap back to life in flame!

This week my old post on and Evangelical approach to same-sex marriage has fired back up – for obvious reasons. I’m not going to link there because I just can’t wade into the 195 comments without getting lost. I did, however, want to report about a most interesting exchange that came out of it.

Someone who disagreed with my saying that ‘homosexual’ as we currently understand and conceive of the term, never existed until the 19th century. Some people keep wanting to argue about sexual acts and missing that there are broader issues of orientation and identity that were not addressed in Greco-Roman culture or the greek language of the New Testament.

One such person – let’s call him TM – engaged the issue this way:

For example, the statement “The Bible (the inspired written word of God) is not talking about homosexuality. It didn’t exist.” seems somewhat confusing, even if we only focused on the Roman era of indulgences of the First Century. Are you suggesting that homosexuality didn’t exist in this era… simply because they may have called it something else?

This is along the lines of your attempt to make a point about television – in one sense, it didn’t exist; and yet in another, it did – as plays/theater. Are you suggesting that simply because the presentation was different that there weren’t actors and actresses who presented drama, comedy, tragedy and more to a mass audience? Are you really going to argue that because a word didn’t exist that means the concept didn’t exist?

Do you see the how the analogy works? This is really important to see because those who sincerely believe that they are being faithful to the scriptures are often mashing contemporary experiences into ancient writings in a way that is … how should I say this?
Let’s try it a different way: when your faith is constructed in such a way that you need your sacred text to speak to every area of your life – then you will, by necessity, fit your modern data into the provided molds.

My response to TM included 3 points of departure:

“TV is indeed different from ancient theatre.

1) One can sit alone in a house and watch TV, absent of the social connection and crowd interaction.

2) One can also change the channel when it gets boring. You can not do that at the theatre.

3) Plays also so do not have commercials which deeply influence us.

In those three ways I would say that one can not simply say “TV and theatre are the same” as you have.

You are comfortable mashing modern categories onto the ancient & calling them the same. This willingness to mash is why you are frustrated that the Bible isn’t talking about what we are talking about. TV is a different medium than ancient theatre – I hope that you can see that.”

It seems like a great example of the where the ‘two’ sides are missing each other in this debate.

It reminds me a great deal of the ongoing issues of conservatives ‘starting in the middle’ that I am perpetually having to point out.

That is where Ray Comfort takes the highly refined and cultivated modern banana and reads meaning, design, and intention back into it by the ‘creator’ – even going as far as it’s fit to the human hand, its easy pull tab opening, and its built-in disposal wrapping.

Maybe it would be easier for us to talk about TV & theatre in a categorical way before we wade into the elevated hostilities of the same-sex debate.

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, conversations, engaging, latest, media, news, politics, public policy, thinking Tagged With: ancient, Bible, church, conservative, court, gay, God, homosexual, homosexuality, jesus, marriage, modern, news, paul, same sex, science, TV

Contextual Emergence (think farming): Day 21

March 26, 2013 by Bo Sanders 2 Comments

Tony is talking about contextual theology in chapter 21 of his book Neighbors and Wisemen. He doesn’t use the word contextual, but in several places he says really inspiring and helpful things that any contextual theologian would love to interact with.

“These questions supply the “what” of spiritual formation, but it is in the answers that we find life. Let me explain what I mean.

Every animal on earth must answer the same questions … adapted to their physical life, in order to thrive:

Where do I find food?

What is the source of water?

What makes a suitable home?

What symbiotic relationships support life?

How do I pro-create?

What is my place in the ecosystem?

All these questions define life for any creature.

However, the bird will answer these questions very differently than the fish. The questions are identical, but the geography defines the answers. Answers in the rain forest look nothing like the answers in the desert. Answers inside the river look very different from the answers in the Arctic or in Central Park.”

I get challenged in nearly every place that I go about this term ‘emergent’. Now, to be fair, most people have never looked into the scientific theory of emergence - to them it is a brand like Baptist, or Catholic or Pentecostal. It could be called “Shock-zone Psycha-jazz” Church and mean just about as much to them.

All the same, the challenge often sounds like this:

“I hear 10 different definitions of the emergent church. It seems to mean on thing to this group and a different thing in this area.”

That is a fair question. But a better way to approach the topic might be to cut “emergent church” out of the sentence and paste “farming” in it’s place. How would you answer this question:

“I hear 10 different definitions of ‘farming’. It seems to mean on thing to this group and a different thing in this area.”

Not that hard right? Different soil, different climate, different water sources, different seeds mean that farming in one region can look entirely different from it does in another.

Why can’t we do that for churches? The answer is found in a complex historical conception called a ‘classicist’ approach to theology – which we don’t have time for here – but which continues to plague us with the confusion between unity and conformity. Unity is a good thing. Unity, however, comes from diversity and difference.

God is active in each and every neighborhood. God is telling a story in every place at every time. There is no place in the world where God is not working.

The art and challenge for us a Jesus’ people is find, join, and tell God’s story in that place.

Tony challenges us:

Two thousand years ago, Jesus wrote parables from his interactions with his neighbors. Today, as we walk with him, Jesus continues his habit of parable writing. Only now it’s not Nazareth, this neighborhood is different. He is writing new parables through our spiritually forming neighbors all around.

I love this idea. I would love if this were true. I try to live my life as if this were the truest thing on earth.

Filed Under: conversations, latest Tagged With: analogy, book, books, brand, church, contextual, Emergent, farming, God, jesus, parable, theology, Tony Kriz

Local and Second Naïveté (Day 20)

March 25, 2013 by Bo Sanders 3 Comments

In chapter 20 of his book Neighbors and Wisemen, Tony Kriz talks about the virtues, and limitations, of the move toward local.

A couple of months ago, Tony took my on a walk about his neighborhood as we were on the phone for our interview for the Hombrewed Podcast.

Tony loves his neighbors and also thinks that it is important to love your neighborhood. Those are not always the same thing

“In addition to loving my individual neighbors, I also want to love my neighborhood as a place, the place where God has planted me. Every one of my neighbors is an expert in our shared locality. Each one lives, studies, watches, interprets, listens, and contributes to the DNA of our particular precious place in the world. If I am going to know how to love my place well, I need to harvest the intelligence of everyone: rich and poor, young and old, conservative and liberal, every culture and every background. They are the textbooks and we are the activists.

Finally, and most important, my neighbors transform me. So much so that I no longer believe I can be spiritually whole with- out them.”

The move toward local is important. In an era of trucked in vegetables and national franchises, global economies and multi-national corporations, it is important to think about this stuff in ways that show integrity and conviction.

In many ways the conversation about local reminds me of the concern regarding Second Naïveté ( you can read a quick summary of Paul Ricoeur’s idea here).

Second Naiveté (SN) is way to read the bible or engage religion that is not like first naiveté in a surface reading or literal approach. SN has also gone past the desert of disbelief (simple deconstruction) to a place of informed engagement.

Take the story of Jonah. There is a 1st way we are taught to read it children’s church and there is a desert of disbelief where we come to say “it is impossible that story is real” – not just the 3 days in the belly of a big fish but the repenting cows of chapter 8 – and more toward a Second Naïveté.

This is where we read the story with fresh eyes again and allow it to have it’s intended effect on us. We don’t get caught up in the physics of the story or the literalness of the history but we hear the word of the Lord for us in the story.

Since I have the local conversation as well as the Second Naïveté one frequently – I have noticed a similarity is the arguments or resistance against both.

Let’s take the move toward local.

The first objection comes in the form of

“I live in a small town and we have been doing local the whole time. We never stopped doing it. We have been going to the same local breakfast diner for 30 years. It is owned by Mom & Pop and so there is no problem.”

The second objection says

“Sure I shop at Walmart and eat at Applebee’s but I know both the cashier and the waitress by name – so that is local.”

While both are valid points, they are not engaging the issue. Those are valuable conversations but they are not the same as addressing the larger systemic issues that the local conversation is attempting to examine.

Where does the produce come from? How far is it trucked in and what it the fuel cost for the ingredients?
What percentage of the profits stay in the community? How much flexibility is there to respond to local challenges and needs? Where are the decisions made?

In just these 6 questions, both shopping at Walmart and eating at Applebee’s fail to meet the local expectations – even if you happen to go to church with the person who checks you out or serves your table respectively.

We are part of a system, a larger chain of supply, that local it attempting to address. We do ourselves and our community a disservice when resort to easy dismissals and prefer to stick with our first naiveté.

There is a great need to pass through an intelligent examination and arrive at a second place of informed engagement.

The christian has no excuse to hide behind elementary dismissal. The christian message is one of incarnation and local engagement. The word became flesh and moved into a neighborhood.

Jesus didn’t speak every language. He spoke his local languages.
Jesus didn’t live everywhere. He ministered in a 20 mile radius.
Jesus didn’t address every issue. He changed the world by addressing his local concerns and touching the people he crossed paths with in a day.

The christian message is first and foremost a local and contextual one. We are called to love our neighbors – by name – and our neighborhoods as well.

Filed Under: conversations, latest Tagged With: Bible, book, books, church, Context, food, fuel, God, incarnation, jesus, local, neighborhood, neighbors, Tony Kriz

We are all Broken (Day 19)

March 23, 2013 by Bo Sanders 1 Comment

I am blogging my way through Neighbors and Wisemen for Lent.

I love Tony’s analogy of ‘sharing the gospel’ like one shares a sunset – instead of like on shares a piece of cake. No one owns the sunset and to share that experience with someone requires a humility and a presence that is beautiful.

If I told you about the sunset, I would not have entirely ‘shared’ it with you. You have to be there to experience all the colors, the temperature, the smells, and the relational moment.

Me telling you about the gospel is the same way. I can tell you about it – but so much would be missing! Sharing the gospel is standing in the same experiential moment with someone.

We need to understand that when we have told someone about the gospel – we have not necessarily shared it with them.

wordplay : broken

I attended a christian college in the mid 90’s and it didn’t take long for me to get tired of the word “broken”. God was apparently into breaking people – mostly during praise songs in worship services. Everyone was so broken.

It brought out my cynical side.

The problem stemmed around this idea of jars of clay/broken vessels. But is was complicated by the emotional fracturing and immaturity that was found in late-teen / early 20’s children of the divorce culture who were more familiar with pop-psychology than with christian theology. We were a mess.

I started floating an idea with my peers and those in leadership that there was another kind of broken: a horse is broken.

This was a powerful shift for me – and some others.

God did not want to shatter us like a clay jar and then put us back together – which was the imagery employed. God wanted to break us like a horse needs broken in – in order to harness it and partner with it.

Sometime you just have to change the wordplay, and I appreciate that Tony has done this with ‘sharing’.

Thinking in systems.

I was very depressed to read about Tony’s dismissal from the college ministry. I just wanted to yell “you don’t need them. Just keep going to Reed!”

But those who are a part of systems tend to think in systems. I do.

I ran this through my brain all day and in the end, I think Tony staying just would have caused more trouble … unfortunately that is the current system and how systems work.

I would love to get your reflections on the chapter.

Filed Under: conversations, latest Tagged With: broken, college, evangelism, Reed, share, sunset, Tony Kriz

Things have really changed in 30 years (Day 18)

March 21, 2013 by Bo Sanders 8 Comments

Things have really changed in 30 years. It is nearly impossible to overstate how monumental the shift has been! You can see it in areas from:

Technology
Spirituality
Denominational loyalty
Media

and so many other categories. We could talk about evangelism, Facebook, homework, dating, church, shopping, elections, and never run out of material for how much things have changed in that last 30 years.

Tim Vickery, a soccer columnist in S. America, was sick one week and spent his time on the couch watching reruns of Seinfeld. He had an epiphany: Seinfeld had to have been made before the invention of the cell-phone! 90% of the show’s plots would have been foiled by one simple cell phone call.

I went back and watched some Seinfeld episodes after Tim pointed this out. It is actually shocking to see. I am also amazed at how important a role cell phones play in contemporary films and TV shows. Most of plot lines could not happen without that new technology.

I’m blogging my way through Neighbors and Wisemen for Lent. In this chapter Tony’s Dad distances himself from a co-worker who wants to get to know him better and to talk about things of faith. He does this because the co-worker is a Mormon.

I remember the days when was considered a righteous and sincere response. Tony’s dad was a devout man who read the BIble everyday. His reaction to the co-workers request is something that I have seem a bunch from that generation.

Things have changed, and continue to change, quite a bit in just one generation.

Another story involved Kym the Insider voicing concern that non-christians would be invited to participate with a group of believers in doing good. Acts of compassion and kindness can only be done by those who claim to do them in Jesus’ name? or else they become tainted?

It would be hard to hold that line these days … but people do.

Double Judgment: I had a kid in my youth group a few years ago who’s family attended a neighboring local Bible church. The kid’s father was very concerned about this very issue. The kid reported to me that if somebody who was not a Christian did something kind – something that would have been chalked up to righteousness for a believer – that they were heaping judgment on themselves in the eyes of God.

You see, if a non-christian gives to the needy or feeds the hungry, they are doing it for the wrong reason (to feel better about themselves) or for the wrong motive (to relieve their guilty conscience) and in so doing they are actually mocking God and being selfish.

I talked to the kid and the dad at length about this. I questioned: your telling me that if somebody who is without saving faith in Jesus does what Jesus said to do – that they are actually making it worse for themselves on judgment day?

Yes, that is what they were saying. You see, if you belong to the right ‘bank’ then all these good deeds are credited to your account. BUT if you are outside of God’s system then you are actually racking up a larger debt that you owe because you are doing these good deeds in your own power and for your own satisfaction/glory.

If you are a sinner, you should act like a sinner – not a good person – so that you come to the end of yourself sooner and repent of your sinful selfish ways.

A non-christian who does good deeds is only masking their need for repentance. They think that they are thus a good person because they do good deeds.

Tony ends the chapter with a poem-ism thing. That poem sounds socialist and new age-y.

Oh wait … I just figured out that is from the Bible… only a different translation/rendering. All I have to say about that is: stop messing with my Bible.

I welcome your thoughts and stories about all of this!

Filed Under: conversations, latest Tagged With: 30 years, Bible, book, books, changes, church, dating, denomination, elections, evangelism, Facebook, generation, God, history, homework, jesus, loyalty, Media, shopping, society, spirituality, technology, Tony Kriz

Jesus was a Cowboy without a Community

March 21, 2013 by Bo Sanders 85 Comments

I love community. I was the pastor of a ‘cell church’ for 11 years and simply delighted in so many aspects of the model.

I love being in community. In every phase of my spiritual journey, I have been encouraged to engage, being accountable to and submit to the authority of the groups I was a part of. I have done this with denominational pastor groups, Wild at Heart men’s groups, my PhD cohort, and many others.

I love the idea of community. As a young evangelical I romanticized the model of the early church that I read about in scripture and set my internal compass to always point north to community.

I talk about community. Even though I am now at a Mainline liturgical church that is almost entirely different from my days of ‘cell church’, we still encourage and facilitate and encourage community at every opportunity.

I study community. As a practical theologian my entire project – the whole discipline – is an interdisciplinary approach to engage how faith is lived out in real life communities.

I have a philosophy of community. Even the philosophical elements that I focus on the most are centered in community. The whole reason that I am intrigued by the thoughts of Ricoeur, Gadamer and Lindbeck revolves around their hermeneutic and how it impacts community.

My community credentials are not in question. Whether it is denominational, regional pastor peers, fellow theology students, or the people who minister within the congregation … I believe in communal discernment, accountability, and authority.

That is all going to be important to know with what I am about to say.

I read the oddest thing this morning. Geoff Holsclaw, co-author of the new book Prodigal Christianity with David Fitch, was attempting to stick up for Fitch in the backlash of Fitch’s comments regarding Rob Bell’s lack of accountability – and thus authority when he speaks – now that Bell is not a pastor. (Sr. Deacon Tony Jones had taken Fitch to the mat for it).

Holsclaw’s post was entitled Discernment: a lamb among wolves and it was really good stuff … until the end.

In the final sections Holsclaw says:

“Really, you want me to die to myself to discern God’s Kingdom in this situation?”

Yes, that is exactly it. And we do this because Jesus showed us how, and makes it possible through the giving of his Spirit.

Then, like a needle scratching across an old-school record player … it came to a screeching halt.

I started wracking my brain trying to think of single time Jesus model community discernment.

When he was 12 at the temple? No. He chided his mom and dad for being worried.
When his mom and brothers wanted to take him home? No. He distanced himself from them and said that whoever was with him was his new family.
When the disciples wanted him to change plans on his way to Jerusalem? No. He called them satan and told them to get behind him.
With the Pharisees? No. He was in constant conflict with the teachers of law.

Actually – I can’t think of a single example of Jesus discerning communally. and then it hit me:

Jesus is an unaccountable Cowboy without a community.

He never listened to anyone else – he always knew the right answer and was unwavering in his confident conviction.
He never went and humbly sought advice.
He never had someone change his mind in the midst of a conversation.
He is the consummate winner – the rogue hero – the wild-man philosopher bucking the system – forging his own way on the frontier of faith..

This is a terrible development!

Not only does Holsclaw’s thesis not hold water … Jesus is actually the example of the exact thing that Holsclaw is trying to move away from!

If somebody came into our town and starting acting like Jesus, we would say that was hurting the church community, causing conflict and division. He would hide behind ‘being a prophet’ and not respond to Matthew 18 church discipline and submit to any authority.

Jesus, seen in this way, is a maverick and a macho man who doesn’t need to listen to anyone except his internal dialogue. God talks directly to him and he knows the way.

Jesus doesn’t listen to his elders, his family, his religious community or his friends!

Look, I love what Holsclaw is calling us to … but to say that Jesus modeled this for us is just the wrong way to go!

Say he called us to it. Say that he envisioned it. Say that he opens the way. Say that this is the whole point of Pentecost and the gift of the Spirit. … but don’t say that this is what see in Jesus.

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